Generating JSPs With BatchJHaml

Last year, I was assigned to build a web app using Struts. I wanted a Haml interpreter and found JHaml. The problem is it only converts Haml strings to HTML. I need something to convert .haml files to .html or .jsp files. Why should you use Haml? See here.

Due to this limitation, I created BatchJHaml. If you’re using BatchJHaml as a standalone app, it’s pretty straight forward. But what if you want to include BatchJHaml into your Ant build script? Here’s what you need to do.

1.) Run git clone git@github.com:pugnusferreus/batchjhaml.git in your terminal

2.) cd to BatchJHaml

3.) Run ant and BatchJHaml.jar will appear in the dist directory.

4.) Copy and paste BatchJHaml.jar in your local lib directory.

5.) Copy the following into your local lib directory as well. You can find them in the BatchJHaml/lib folder. If you already have the following, you can ommit this step. If you have a later version of the following jars, you can use them as well.

• commons-io-1.4.jar

• commons-lang-2.5.jar

• guava-r06.jar

• jhaml-0.1.2.jar

• markdownj-1.0.2b4-0.3.0.jar

6.) Copy the following build target into your build.xml

<target name="compile-haml">
  <echo message="Converting haml files into jsp ..." />
  <java fork="true" classname="com.progriff.jhaml.BatchJHaml">
    <classpath>
      <fileset dir="${library.home}">
        <include name="**/commons-io-*.jar" />
        <include name="**/commons-lang-*.jar" />
        <include name="**/guava-*.jar" />
        <include name="**/jhaml-*.jar" />
        <include name="**/markdownj-*.jar" />
      </fileset>
      <path location="${library.home}/BatchJHaml.jar"/>
    </classpath>
    <arg value="~/YourProject/haml"/>
    <arg value="~/YourProject/haml/layouts"/>
    <arg value="~/YourProject/jsp"/>
    <arg value="jsp"/>
    <arg value="~/YourProject/javascripts"/>
    <arg value="~/YourProject/stylesheets"/>
  </java>
</target>

7.) In your build target, add compile-haml to your depends. Example:

<target name="build" depends="clean, prepare,compile, compile-haml">

And enjoy your Haml.